CHINATOWN - Vancouver Neon

CHINATOWN
A WALKING TOUR THROUGH HISTORY
THE CITY OF VANCOUVER PLANNING DEPARTMENT
THE HERITAGE VANCOUVER SOCIETY
THE VANCOUVER MUSEUM
WALKING THE TOUR
The entire tour will take about two hours, beginning at the intersection
of Pender and Carrall Streets. If you walk the tour during business hours,
you can browse in shops. Restaurants are open for lunch and dinner.
On crowded Pender Street, architectural details above street level are
difficult to see. A suggestion would be to view the subject buildings from
the opposite side of the street. For information on public transportation
to Chinatown, telephone TRANSLINK at 604.953.3333, or visit their
website: www.translink.bc.ca.
The B.C. Heritage Trust has provided financial assistance to this project to support conservation of our
heritage resources, gain further knowledge and increase public understanding of the complete history
of British Columbia.
For more information about CHINATOWN:
Exploring Vancouver: The Essential Architectural Guide
by Harold Kalman, Ron Phillips and Robin Ward (UBC Press, Vancouver, 1993).
East as West: State, Place and the Institutionalization of Myth
in Vancouver’s Chinatown
by Kay Anderson (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, UBC, 1986).
Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980
by Kay J. Anderson (McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal/Toronto, 1991).
Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver
by Paul Yee (Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver/Toronto, 1988).
Robin Ward’s Vancouver
by Robin Ward (Harbour Publishing, 1990).
The Concubine’s Children: Portrait of a Family Divided
by Denise Chong (Viking, Toronto, 1994).
The Jade Peony
by Wayson Choy (Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver/Toronto, 1995).
Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood
by Wayson Choy (Penquin Books of Canada, 2000)
Vancouver at the Dawn. A Turn-of-the-Century Portrait.
by John A. Cherrington (Harbour Publishing, 1997)
Vancouver Walks: Discovering City Heritage
by Michael Kluckner & John Atkin (Steller Press, revised edition 2005)
3rd Printing 2005
Visit the City of Vancouver’s Heritage Website at www.vancouver.
INTRODUCING CHINATOWN
Chinatown sounds like it would be the place where most
Vancouver residents of Chinese descent live. That is certainly
not true today, but it was in the 1880s when the swampy fringe
of False Creek around the intersection of Carrall and Pender
Streets became known as Chinatown. Chinatown is one of the
city’s earliest commercial and residential districts, containing a
remarkable collection of buildings from Vancouver’s boom years
in the early twentieth century. This tour will introduce you to the
architecture and history of the neighbourhood.
The pioneers of British Columbia included the Chinese. Years
before Vancouver was incorporated in 1886, Chinese labourers
worked in the industries that built the province—in gold fields,
coal mines, sawmills and canneries. Many emigrated from
southern China, where English-speaking Chinese bosses recruited
them to work under contract in Canada. Between 1881 and 1885,
for example, 15,000 Chinese were contracted to build the Canadian
Pacific Railway (CPR). With the rail track completed in 1885, out
of work and with li�le money, many came to Vancouver.
In those early years, Chinatown was overwhelmingly male. This
reflected the process of recruiting men as labourers, a pa�ern that
was reinforced in 1885 when the Canadian Government placed
a head tax on incoming Chinese immigrants. Few had savings
sufficient to pay the head tax required to bring over wives,
children and other relatives to Canada.
Many Chinese labourers lived in Chinatown only between
jobs. O�en they were away from Vancouver for months at a
time working at seasonal jobs, like lumbering or canning fish.
In Chinatown, most of the population lived in rooming houses
along Pender Street.
Not all the Chinese shared the circumscribed life of the labourers.
Class distinctions in Chinatown were sharp. At the top were a
handful of wealthy firms run by individuals who controlled much
of the business life of Chinatown. Some firms, such as the Wing
Sang Company, grew rich by contracting workers, importing
and exporting a variety of goods, investing in real estate, and
selling steamship tickets. Partners in the wealthiest firms lived
in Chinatown in great luxury and elegance surrounded by their
many family members.
More numerous were the merchants, who owned and operated
green-groceries, laundries, tailor shops and other small
businesses. Often they chose these occupations for lack of
other options—they were
barred, for instance, from
working on city works by
civic politicians.
The Chinese created
their own associations
to aid their fellows.
Associations, based on
common surnames or
place of birth in China
The Chinese Arch at Hastings and Carrall Street, built for the provided social activities
Duke of Cornwall’s visit. Photo, 1901.
VPL 7750
and social services in
Chinatown. Members
raised funds to build the imposing headquarters that still line
Pender Street. Some also sponsored rotating credit associations,
that provided the capital for many new Chinatown businesses.
But even the wealthiest Chinese lived on the margins of
Vancouver society. Discrimination took many forms, from
disparaging cartoons in local newspapers to systematic
harassment by City inspectors. The Chinese were not allowed
to vote in city, provincial or federal elections. Powerless at the
ballot box, they nevertheless actively resisted discriminatory
measures. Chinese people frequently took the City to court to
redress their grievances. The Chinese were not legally required
to live in segregated areas, but the racially motivated hostility
rampant in the rest of the city prior to World War II made it seem
the wiser course.
In bad times, when jobs were scarce, anti-Chinese sentiment
peaked. Union workers resented Chinese labourers because
they were o�en used by employers to break strikes. Chinese
labour bosses, hoping to maintain their supply of cheap labour,
prevented contact between Chinese workers and the organized
union movement.
By 1907 the boom that began with the Klondike Gold Rush of
1897 faltered. The mild recession focussed a�ention on Chinese
workers. That year Vancouver’s Asiatic Exclusion League held
a rally a�ended by thousands. A�erwards, a mob marched on
Chinatown, smashing property and looting stores. A�er World
War I, another job shortage led to renewed calls to restrict Chinese
immigration. In 1923 the Federal Government responded by
bringing down a new bill that massively restricted and effectively
barred all new Chinese immigration. Until its repeal 25 years later,
Vancouver’s Chinatown commemorated the Act’s passage with
an annual Humiliation Day.
The effect of the Act upon Chinatown was stagnation. The
community of largely aging bachelor men was unable to grow
without new immigration. The Depression also devastated
Chinatown. The City legislated lower levels of relief for Chinese
than for white residents, and in all, 175 patrons of Chinatown’s
Pender Street soup kitchen died of malnutrition during those
years. During the 1930s the Vancouver Chinese community lost
6,000 people, half of its members, by death or emigration.
World War II brought dramatic change to the status of the Chinese
and Chinatown in Vancouver. During the war, China fought as
Canada’s ally, and the war taught a powerful lesson about the
folly of racism. Finally in 1947 the Canadian Government repealed
the exclusionist Act. Ordinary Chinese were able to bring their
wives and children from China. Many families found homes in the
neighbourhood of Strathcona, immediately east of Chinatown.
During the war and a�erwards, Vancouver began to look at
Chinatown in a new way. Suddenly the Chinatown that had been
portrayed as foreign, sinister and dangerous was now wri�en
about as exotic, appealing
and safe. Residents from
all over the city travelled
to Chinatown with the
enthusiasm of tourists
sampling foods, buying
curios and savouring the
district’s distinctiveness.
Chinatown’s merchants
and restaurateurs added View looking south along Carrall Street at East
glamour to the community’s Pender. Photo, circa 1940.
new image with gleaming neon signs.
In the 1960s, Vancouver planned its first major freeway to cut right
through Chinatown. Citizens’ action groups effectively intervened
and caused the plan to be abandoned in 1968. The Province also
recognized Chinatown’s special history and architecture by
designating it a historic district in 1971. In 1979, the Chinatown
Historic Area Planning Committee sponsored a streetscape
improvement program. Chinese-style elements, such as tile-red
street lamps and specially paved sidewalk crosswalks, were
introduced, reflecting the City’s new appreciation of Chinatown
as a civic asset.
1
Sam Kee Building
8 West Pender Street
The Sam Kee Company, one of Chinatown’s wealthiest
firms in the early 1900s, bought this land as a standardsized lot in 1903. In 1912 the City widened Pender Street,
expropriating 24 feet off the front. The architects Brown
and Gillam designed this narrow, 6 foot wide steel-framed
building in 1913. The basement, extending under the
sidewalk, housed public baths; offices and shops were on
the ground floor, and living quarters above. Rehabilitation
of the building was by Soren Rasmussen Architect and
completed in 1986. It is the thinnest building in the world
according to the Guinness Book of Records.
2
Shanghai Alley
3
Chinese Freemasons Building
Due west of Carrall and Pender Streets
Responding to pressure from white merchants on
Hastings Street, Chinese businesses moved south of
Pender Street along Carrall Street a�er 1904. Many of
the new buildings had double fronts, one side opening
onto Carrall Street and the other onto Shanghai Alley.
Eventually restaurants, stores, a theatre and several
tenements crowded the narrow alley. A similar alley,
Canton Alley, ran parallel one block west. Canton Alley
and much of Shanghai Alley were demolished in the
1940s when non-Chinese industries began squeezing
into the older, western edge of Chinatown. A portion of
Shanghai Alley is re-instituted as part of a housing and
commercial development planned for this site.
1 West Pender Street
Buildings in Chinatown blend Chinese and Western
architectural treatments, sometimes in subtle ways.
This 1901 building shows Chinese-influence recessed
balconies along the Pender Street facade. Chinatown
and Gastown were connected by Carrall Street; this
facade is more convetional without recessed balconeys.
The Chee Kung Tong (CKT) purchased the building
in 1907 and was a powerful society that supported
the 1911 Chinese rebellion led by Dr. Sun-Yat Sen.
The CKT mortgaged this building to raise money for
his cause. In 1920 the CKT changed its name to the
Chinese Freemasons and became associated with the
be�er-known Freemasons Society.
4
Chinese Times Building
5
Chinese Cultural Centre
6
Yue Shan Society Headquarters
1 East Pender Street
The Wing Sang Company commissioned prominent
Vancouver architect W.T. Whiteway to design this
building in 1902. He incorporated a mezzanine
above the first floor, and seven oriel windows on the
top floor. The Chinese Times newspaper had been
published in Chinatown since 1914, and in this
building between 1939 and 1994, when it ceased
operation due to the introduction of Hong Kongbased daily newspapers in Vancouver.
50 East Pender Street
The Chinese Cultural Centre is an ambitious project
that reflects Chinatown’s continuing importance
for Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadians. Opened
in 1981, the Cultural Centre houses classrooms,
meeting rooms, exhibition space, an activity hall,
a bookstore and a reading room.
33–37 East Pender Street
W.H. Chow, the architect of this building erected in
1920, managed to surmount both the legal and the
informal hurdles that prevented most of Vancouver’s
early Chinese from entering professions. Chow
designed several other Chinatown buildings,
including Ming’s restaurant at 141–147 East Pender,
which has been extensively altered over the years
.
7
Wing Sang Building
51–67 East Pender Street
This group of structures was built over a 12-year
period. The part inscribed “1889” is the oldest
building in Chinatown. The brick addition and
third floor were built in 1901 and designed by
architect T.E. Julian. The Wing Sang Company
prospered by supplying contract labourers, selling
tickets for the CPR’s steamship lines and operating
a herring plant in Vancouver. Yip Sang, the owner,
is credited with founding the city’s first Chinese
hospital.
8
New Sun Ah Hotel
100 East Pender Street
The Sun Ah Hotel’s 48 rooms on the top three
storeys were lodgings for Chinese labourers early
in the twentieth century. The building, built in
1910 with additions in 1911, was designed by R.T.
Perry and White and Cockrill. The ground floor is
home to Foo’s Ho-Ho the last of the “village-style”
Cantonese restaurants from the late 1940s
9
Chinese Benevolent Association
108 East Pender Street
This building was completed in 1909 and is home to
the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA). With its
stone fire walls, imposing four storeys plus pediment
wall, and recessed balcony with ornate wrought iron
railings, the CBA building played a symbolic and
practical role within the Chinatown community.
Organized in Victoria in the late nineteenth century
to represent the Chinese to the larger community,
the CBA led protests against repressive legislation,
provided for Chinatown’s poor during hard times,
and sponsored Chinese-language schools.
Benevolent Association
10 Wong’s
123 East Pender Street
A mutual assistance association based on a common
surname, the Wong Benevolent Association
built this structure in 1921 as their headquarters.
The architects, J.A. Radford and G.L. Southall,
significantly altered an existing 1910 building by
demolishing the top floor for the new addition.
Since 1925 children have attended after-school
Chinese language classes on the second floor. In 1947,
the school began offering the first high school-level
Chinese classes in Canada. Look for the the stained
glass window incorporating Chinese characters. The
building was designed by architects .
Building
11 Lee
129–131 East Pender Street
Another surname association headquarters, the
Lee Building was built in 1907 and gu�ed by fire
in 1972. Architects Henriquez and Todd preserved
the original façade as a free-standing screen and
built a new structure behind it.
Wing Chun Society
12 Chin
160 East Pender Street
Constructed in 1925 as headquarters for a surname
association, this building demonstrates the blending
of influences in Chinatown’s architecture. The
architect, R. A. McKenzie, who practiced for more
than five years in northern China, incorporated
the recessed balconies common to tropical
southern China in the building design. However,
the crowning pediment supported by columns is
pulled from the classical Western tradition.
City Credit Union
13 Van
178 East Pender Street
This building served as branch for the Bank of
Montreal from its completion in 1971 to 1992, before
it relocated next door. With a recessed balcony,
broken roof line and ornamental dragons, the design
by architects Birmingham and Wood is an early
a�empt to fit in with the revitalized streetscape.
Bank of Commerce
14 Canadian
501 Main Street
Built in an eclectic neo-Renaissance style typical
of Shanghai’s Bund, this branch of the Bank of
Commerce designed by V.D. Horsburgh was
completed in 1915. Note the presence of the
caduceus, a winged staff with entwined snakes, as
a decorative element on the front of the building.
This emblem, the symbol of medicine, was also a
popular symbol of commerce.
Centre
15 Carnegie
401 Main Street
This monumental Romanesque design with a
domed and pillared porch was designed by G.W.
Grant and built with the assistance of Andrew
Carnegie funds to house Vancouver’s public library
in 1902-03. In 1957, the library relocated to Burrard
Street and the Vancouver Museum, and City
Archives used the building until they moved into
new quarters in Vanier Park in 1968. The building
was then converted to a community centre for the
residents of the Downtown Eastside by architects
Downs/Archambault in 1978-79.
Building
16 Kuomintang
296 East Pender Street
Clubs and associations in Chinatown mirrored
changes in China’s politics. The Kuomintang
(KMT, or Chinese Nationalist League) built this
as its western Canadian headquarters. The KMT
supported Dr. Sun-Yat Sen, the 1911 rebellion, and
the rebel government in southern China, where
so many of Chinatown’s immigrants had lived.
During World War I, the northern Chinese Manchu
Government persuaded its ally, Canada, to ban the
KMT. The ban was li�ed in 1919 and this building
was constructed the following year to the design
prepared by W. E. Sproat.
Bank of Canada Building
17 Hongkong
600 Main Street
The Hongkong Bank of Canada is the prime tenant
in this building designed by Wing Ting Leung
Architects and opened in 1996. It includes many
traditional architectural features such as a recessed
balcony and heavy cornice, and an unusual round
corner element. The construction of the building
was welcomed as an indication of confidence in
the future of Chinatown despite recent years of
economic uncertainty.
Plaza
18 Chinatown
180 Keefer Street
In response to competition from “new Chinatowns”
in the suburbs, the merchants of historic Chinatown
sought to a�ract shoppers through the construction
of this 950-space parkade. Designed by Joe Wai
Architects, the parkade has traditional features
such as brick construction and a red-tile roof. The
1000-seat Floata Seafood Restaurant is a major
a�raction.
Cultural Centre/Museum
19 Chinese
and Archives Building
555 Columbia Street
The Museum and Archives Building is situated on
the north-east corner of the Chinese Cultural Centre
complex and is another building designed by
Vancouver-based architect Joe Wai. It was officially
opened in 1998.
Sun-Yat Sen Classical Chinese
20 Dr.
Garden
578 Carrall Street
The Dr. Sun-Yat Sen Classical Garden, designed
by architect Joe Wai and landscape architect Don
Vaughan, was completed in 1985. Built by artisans
from China employing traditional techniques and
materials, it is the first full-size classical Chinese
garden outside of China. The entrance to the public
side of the walled garden is accessed off Columbia
Street. One may also experience a guided tour of
the architectural component of the garden upon
payment of an admission fee; this entrance is off
Carrall Street.
Visit the City of Vancouver’s Heritage Website at www.vancouver.ca/heritage